The WMPAC Team

John Zirkle

Executive Director, Artistic Director

john@warrenmillerpac.org

John Zirkle is the Founding Director of Big Sky’s Warren Miller Performing Arts Center, and under his leadership, WMPAC has hosted over 375 programs, serving more than 100,000 people in a town of less than 4,000 full-time residents. In addition to consistently presenting world-renowned artists from across the globe in a variety of formats, John’s programming at WMPAC is known for its wildly creative approach to gathering artists and audiences, like tiny theaters pulled behind pick-up trucks at farmers markets, outdoor winter concerts with a piano in the middle of a cross-country ski course, and dizzyingly complex technological presentations during COVID to keep artists working and audiences entertained.

As the key development officer for WMPAC, John has raised over $10 million for the arts in Montana by establishing strong relationships with public funding entities, private foundations, and individual donors. He has served as an expert panelist for the Montana Arts Council, the Cultural and Aesthetics Projects Committee for the Montana State Legislature, the Western States Arts Federation (now CREATIVE WEST), and the National Endowment for the Arts. Current and former board positions include Creative West, the Arts Council of Big Sky, the Montana Performing Arts Consortium, Montana Chamber Music, Arts Northwest, and Roots in the Sky, a professional chamber choir based in Bozeman. In 2024, John was publicly elected to the Big Sky Resort Area District board of directors, which administers a unique 4% tourism-based luxury tax which reinvests over $20M in community development each year in Big Sky.

When he isn’t raising money or designing upcoming seasons, John finds his creative inspiration from singing, collective music-making and storytelling, and since 2010, he has been an active force on the local Big Sky arts scene, directing, facilitating and producing over 60 theatrical and music productions with multiple organizations, several of which he has helped found from the ground up. He is a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and holds degrees from Colorado College (B.A. in Music) and Montana State University (M.Ed). In addition to his work with WMPAC, John loves getting to teach music and drama every day at Lone Peak High School in Big Sky.

Rikka Wommack

Communications Manager

Rikka is the Communications Manager at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center.  She grew up in Maine and is a writer by trade, having worked in the publishing world and as a freelance writer for several years after graduating from Carleton College. She went on to earn a Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing at the University of Montana in Missoula, where she was named the Tim O’Leary and Michelle Cardinal Prose Scholar.

It was in graduate school that she first fell in love with Big Sky, taking advantage of the academic calendar to work here seasonally. She then spent three years teaching literature and writing at international semester schools in Switzerland and the Bahamas, but found that she couldn’t stay away from Big Sky, returning as often as she could to ski, hike, and write in the Montana mountains. She is thrilled to live in Big Sky full-time, and loves being part of the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center’s seminal work.

Jeremiah Slovarp

Technical Director

Jeremiah began his career as a location sound engineer on various films and commercials. In 2002 he started Jereco Studios, Inc. designing his first commercial recording facility, and in the spring of 2010, he founded a second Bozeman, Montana recording facility, Peach Street Studios.

Today, Jeremiah is responsible for producing and engineering Post Production Sound, Live Sound, Music Recording, and Location Sound for many shows and events both nationally and regionally. In 2010, Jeremiah was appointed the Audio Director of the 11th & Grant with Eric Funk music television series on Montana PBS. By 2011, Jeremiah earned his first Emmy Award for Audio for his work on the 11th & Grant TV series. Jeremiah has since earned seven Emmy Awards.

A graduate of Montana State University – Bozeman, Jeremiah continues supporting, working, and teaching at the institution. Jeremiah is faculty and Technical Director at the School of Music and instructor at the School of Film & Photography. He teaches Entertainment Business, Sound for Film & TV, Multimedia Audio Production, Recording 2, and a graduate level sound class for the Science & Natural History Filmmaking’s MFA program.

Jeremiah is – A member of the Board of Governors for the Northwest Chapter – National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. A mentor for the Recording Connection. An active member of the Audio Engineering Society [AES] and the Recording Academy [Grammy Awards].

Jeremiah enjoys skiing wherever there is fresh powder, trout fishing in his childhood backyard of the West Boulder River, driving big trucks, and listening to music of all kinds.